“That they’re down there alone in a haunted house?” Lydia snapped. “I think if she got hold of that last demented nanny, she could make a story out of that. You’ve got to get somebody else down there-”

“Already did,” North said, seeing danger ahead. “Very competent. Not a problem. You’re looking tired, Mother. I’d make it an early night if I were you.”

Lydia narrowed her eyes. “Would you? That’s very thoughtful. Where did you get this nanny? From the same service?”

“No.” North picked up his pen. “Anything else?”

Lydia’s icy blue eyes met his. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on now, or do I have to sit here all night and stare at you until you break?”

North put the pen down. “I sent Andie.”

Lydia’s face went slack with surprise, which was some reward, North thought. It took a lot to surprise Lydia.

“Andromeda?”

“Yes,” North said. “You remember her. Dark eyes, curly hair, smart mouth, about this tall”-he held his hand out at about ear height-“used to be married to me.”

“Andromeda is back?”

“She called and asked to see me two days after the last nanny quit. She was free, and I asked her to go down there and straighten things out, and she said yes.”

“Are you going to resume the relationship?”

“No. Now I have work to get back to-”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to see her again. It’s been ten years, she’s probably dressing like an adult now-”

“She’s engaged,” North said flatly.

Lydia lost her smile. “Why?”

“I assume because she’d like to be married again.”

“Who could she find that would be better than you?” Lydia said, outraged.

“I think ‘better’ is subjective.” North picked up his pen and tapped it on his legal pad. “And now I really have to work.”

Lydia looked at him, exasperation plain. “I gave birth to idiots. My oldest son can’t keep his wife, and my youngest son is chasing a woman that’s mostly teeth and hair.”

“We blame you,” North said.

“Are you going to see Andromeda again?”

“No.”

“Are you going to keep that harpy away from your brother?”

“No.”

Lydia lifted her chin. “Fine, I will handle things myself.” She stood up and tucked her purse under her arm. “But if the future face of the Archer line is ninety-nine percent tooth enamel, it’ll be your fault.”

Of course, North thought as she walked out.

He tried to go back to work, but his mother had broken his concentration. She’s probably dressing like an adult now, Lydia had said, and Andie had sat there in an awful suit jacket, acting like an adult. If they got back together, he was burning that damn jacket-

They weren’t getting back together. She was marrying somebody else.

She’s a bolter. Even if she marries this other guy, she won’t stick.

Unless she’d really changed. Unless she’d found somebody she wanted to stick to.

That was the worst thought he’d had in a long time, so he shoved it out of his mind and went back to work.


The next morning Andie went downstairs, made breakfast, and put French toast in front of Alice and Carter.

“Cereal,” Alice said, clutching her pearls, her locket, her shells, her Walkman, and her bat as if the French toast was going to contaminate them. She’d put her hair up in a topknot on her own, and it was sliding down the side of her head, but Andie was willing to let that go if Alice was going to be proactive about grooming.

“Try the French toast,” Andie said while Mrs. Crumb sniffed.

Alice shrank back. “No, no, no, NO, NO-”

“It’s good,” Carter said without looking up from his book.

Alice stopped shrinking, leaned forward, and took a tiny, cautious bite. “AAAAAAAAAAAAGH.”

“Fine,” Andie said, and took the plate away.

Alice pushed her chair back and went and got her cereal and ate a big bowl of it. She was scraping the bottom loudly when they heard a loud, sharp rapping echo through the open door to the hall.

“That’s the front door,” Mrs. Crumb said, surprised.

“Right,” Andie said, remembering. “That might be a cable company, and there’s also a team of housecleaners coming in to clean-”

“What?” Mrs. Crumb said, her eyes protruding even more in her shock.

“I’ll get the door,” Andie said, and went out into the small hall, through another door, across the Great Hall, through the stone arch into the entrance hall, and finally arrived at the heavy front door. “Sorry,” she said as she opened it. “It’s a real trek to get here.” Then she stopped.

There was a crowd on the doorstep.

“We’re the Happy Housekeepers,” the woman in front said cheerfully. “Where do you want us?”

“The whole house is filthy,” Andie said. “Go nuts everyplace but the kitchen. Mrs. Crumb is in there with knives.”

“That’s a good one,” the woman said. “We’ll start at the top and work down.”

They all piled in, one of them stopping to say, “That driveway of yours is awful.”

“I know, I know, I’m getting it fixed,” Andie said.

“It’s all right,” the woman said. “We’d have climbed down that bank to get to see into this house.”

“Oh. Uh, good,” Andie said, and went back to the kitchen where Mrs. Crumb was hyperventilating. “Look,” she said when she was facing the old woman, “you can’t keep this place clean. No one person could keep this place clean.”

“This is my house,” Mrs. Crumb snapped, shaking with rage, even her teased red updo quivering now.

“No,” Andie said, when she heard the doorknocker again and went to let the cable guy in.

“That driveway,” he said, and she said, “I know, let me know if you need anything,” and then she went back to the kitchen to deal with the red-faced housekeeper again, only to be pulled back to the front door by a FedEx guy, who handed over a big box.

“I had to walk that down your driveway,” he said as she signed for the package. “You need to get that fixed.”

“Yeah,” Andie said, and then met Carter at the bottom of the stairs as he headed for the library. “Here,” she said, handing him the package. “This is addressed to you, and I have to deal with Mrs. Crumb before she knifes one of the cleaning people.”

She turned back to the kitchen but the knocker went again, this time a guy named Bruce who said he’d been sent to look over the house for repairs. “I walked around it,” he said slowly. “You gotta lotta work here.”

“Driveway first,” Andie said, “and then-”

Upstairs, Alice began to scream, “NO NO NO NO NO NO,” and Andie said, “Just make a list,” and ran for the stairs.

Once she’d gotten Alice’s comforter away from the poor woman who was trying to put it in the laundry-“It’s new,” she said, “it’s okay”-and Alice and the comforter and Jessica-the-dead-blue-doll back down to the kitchen with some cocoa as an apology, she confronted Mrs. Crumb again.

Mrs. Crumb turned on her and spat, “I’m not going to put up with this!”

“You’re quitting?” Andie said, hope rising, but Mrs. Crumb saw the abyss and stepped back.

“You brought those women into my house,” she said, and pressed her lips together until her small mouth almost disappeared. “You had no right-”

“It’s not your house,” Andie said calmly. “It’s Carter and Alice’s house. And they deserve to live someplace clean.”

Alice looked up at that, a cocoa mustache making a pinky-brown slash on her colorless face. Her topknot was now over her ear, and Jessica had a new brown splotch on her blue-white face.

“You are the housekeeper,” Andie went on as she pulled out Alice’s scrunchie and moved her topknot to the center of her head again, “which means you’re supposed to keep the house in good condition, which you have not done because it’s impossible for one person to do so.” And because you haven’t tried. “Therefore I have brought in people who will. You can assist them, you can ignore them, or you can leave. It’s your choice.” She picked up the doll and wiped the cocoa off and part of the discolored paint came with it. “Sorry,” she said to Alice and handed the doll back to her.

Alice put the doll under her arm and drank more cocoa, watching as Mrs. Crumb turned an interesting shade of puce.

“I’ve been here for sixty years,” Mrs. Crumb said, and Andie started to slap her down and realized that it wasn’t just rage, it was fear.

The woman had been at Archer House since her teens and she was in her seventies now. She wasn’t going to get another job and the chances that she had much retirement were slim. Oh, hell, Andie thought. Torturing old ladies was not in her job description even if the old ladies were hags from hell. “I suggest that we have the Happy Housekeepers come in every week, and you supervise. After all, no one knows the house like you do.”

“Well,” Mrs. Crumb said, her breath slowing slightly.

“Somebody named Bruce is going to be doing some repairs, too,” Andie said, not adding, And Mr. Archer would like to know where the money he gave you for that went. Let North fight that battle.

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Crumb said, but it was all bluster now.

“Is it lunch yet?” Alice said from behind them. “Because I would like a cheese sandwich. But no tomato soup.”

“How about chicken noodle?” Andie asked her.

“No. NO NO NO NO NO-”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Alice, it’s soup, not poison.”

Alice looked at her darkly. “Maybe.”

“I’ll make it, you try it.”

“No.”

“I made cookies last night. Try the soup, you can have a cookie.”

“No.”

“I said try it. One spoonful.”

“NO.”

“Fine.” Andie turned back to Mrs. Crumb, who seemed distracted now, her eyes darting like a cornered rat’s, falling finally on Alice, slopping her cocoa onto the table.

“You be careful,” she snapped at Alice, her eyes cold on the little girl. “You’re making a mess on my nice clean table.”

“It’s not your table,” Alice said calmly. “It’s mine. Andie said so.”

“We’ll clean it up later,” Andie said, taken aback by Alice’s use of her name.

“This ain’t right,” Mrs. Crumb said, and Andie realized she was near tears. “I been here for sixty years. None of you was born yet but I was here. You don’t know this house. You’re stirring things up. You-”

“Which brings us to my next point,” Andie said. “You will stop talking about ghosts. I have no idea why you thought that was a good idea, but from now on the official position in this house is that there are no ghosts.”

Alice drained her cocoa cup. “I want my sandwich now.”

Andie got out the whole wheat bread as Mrs. Crumb said, “I never said there were no ghosts.”

“Yes you did,” Alice said, and Mrs. Crumb glared at her with absolutely no effect.

“Even if there were,” Andie said, “I don’t see why a good housecleaning would upset them. They don’t live in the dust.”

“Oh, they care,” Mrs. Crumb said to Andie, folding her arms over her orange-flowered apron. “You’ll see they care.”

“For the last time, I do not believe in ghosts-” Andie began, and then Carter came into the kitchen with the box opened.

“It’s computers,” he said, more confused than defiant, and Andie looked inside and saw two sleek Apple boxes holding Mac PowerBook 145s. She took the boxes out and put them on the table and found a note from Kristin that said, “Mr. Archer wanted to make sure the children had computers.”

“Those are from your Uncle North,” Andie said, showing him the note, thinking, Thank you. North never missed on the details.

“Who?” Alice said.

“Bad Uncle,” Andie told her. “They come with a graphics program,” she told Carter.

“What is it?” Alice said poking at her box. “Is it candy?”

“Better,” Carter said, and left with his Mac, undoubtedly heading for the library.

“You think you’re so smart, but you’re not,” Mrs. Crumb said. “All this change, all this stuff. It’s bad.”

Andie gave up on the pity. “Mrs. Crumb, I do not want to have to fire you, but I will if you cause any more problems. You will keep the kitchen clean and you can supervise the Happy Whosis, but you will not tell any more stories about ghosts, and you will not make any more veiled threats, and you will either assist me with the cooking or get out of my way, and you will answer any questions I have without muttering. Is that clear?”

Mrs. Crumb’s nostrils flared, but she said, “Yes.”

“Good,” Andie said, and finished making Alice’s lunch.

When she was done, she put the sandwich in front of Alice.

“I think I’ll have cookies,” Alice said.

“I think you won’t,” Andie said.